Thursday, April 16, 2015

Fight negative body messages

I've written many times before about the way we women view our bodies. We face a plethora of external messages that tell us we're only good or worthy if we're size 4 or 6 and have an hour-glass figure and a model's face and body. Really?! Over time, this does real damage to our self-image and confidence.

Even my 8-year-old granddaughter has already gotten the message from somewhere around her that she's fat (definitely not her parents, who always tell her how wonderful she is just the way she is—and she isn't even carrying any extra weight). Her parents and I told her that she isn't fat and that her worth has nothing to do with body size anyway. It's oh-so-difficult to fight those messages. But we just have to. I suspect she must get that in school from peers, perhaps in the dolls she sees in stores (Barbie and all the others who don't look anything like most of us!), in movies or TV shows (even though she and her brother aren't encouraged to watch much TV at all, thankfully). It doesn't take much, though, does it, to eat its way into our psyche until we see ourselves as deficient and imperfect.

We need to fight those negative messages. We need to support and encourage one another. We need to give our young ones positive messages. We need to encourage positive self-images and promote self-love. It's so important.